


just ask me to

by softestlesbian



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Love, M/M, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 11:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7313173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestlesbian/pseuds/softestlesbian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s seen the interview, then. Nick closes his eyes, and slumps backwards. Harry makes a noise and curls toward him, wrapping his arms around Nick’s waist. “I’m sorry, popstar,” Nick says, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. He has more to say but he doesn’t know how to word it to preserve both his own heart and Harry’s, if Harry’s heart is – well, if it’s available.</p><p>“Don’t want you to be sorry,” Harry murmurs. “Want you to be honest.”</p><p>Nick snorts. “You don’t want that, trust me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	just ask me to

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i started this fic like TWO YEARS AGO, after the "i don't know... i don't know" interview came out, and i just found it and cleaned it up and decided to put it out here. 
> 
> disclaimer: not true; title from if i could fly.

Nick hardly hears the ringing of his doorbell over the sound of the rain outside; it takes his phone buzzing, a text from Aimee, to snap out of his telly-induced coma. There's a long, insistent buzz, and he groans, pushing himself up and shushing Pig, opening the door.

He blinks. 

Harry’s standing there, hair soaking wet and dripping onto the doormat. He looks torn. He shakes his head, once; the rainwater hits Nick. Harry steps back, away from Nick, closer to the rain, when Nick doesn't invite him in straightaway.

He can't have that -- Harry's going to get soaked, properly, and he can't handle the cold without getting sick. “Come, ah, come in,” Nick says, stepping to the side.

Harry looks _wretched_ ; he always looks wretched these days but it’s more, now, bone-deep. Harry all but falls onto the couch and Nick goes after him, slowly and carefully. There’s water all over his couch by this point but he doesn’t mind, he can get it redone. He doesn’t see Harry nearly enough to care about that.

He rests a hand on Harry’s back. “You okay, love?” he asks.

Harry looks up at him. “You said no,” he says, voice flat.

Nick stiffens. “What are you talking about?” but he remembers—of course he does—Harry’s soft kitten kisses, the way he’d looked at Nick under his lashes. And Nick had pushed him away because— _we can’t, Harry, no_ —but Harry was drunk, he was drunk.

Harry doesn’t answer, just swallows. He twists one of his rings around his finger.

Nick’s heart goes with it.

Harry finally speaks. “Why?” he asks, in a small, defeated voice. “I keep going through it in my head and, like – I don’t know what I did, why you wouldn’t even want to… to try? Just once?” He pauses. “You said… you didn’t say no, then.”

He’s seen the interview, then. Nick closes his eyes, and slumps backwards. Harry makes a noise and curls toward him, wrapping his arms around Nick’s waist. “I’m sorry, popstar,” Nick says, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. He has more to say but he doesn’t know how to word it to preserve both his own heart and Harry’s, if Harry’s heart is – well, if it’s available.

“Don’t want you to be sorry,” Harry murmurs. “Want you to be honest.”

Nick snorts. “You don’t want that, trust me.”

“I do, though.” Harry sits up. His hair’s a mess and his eyes are wide. He’s never looked better, Nick thinks in his _entirely unbiased_ opinion. “I want—if you’re going to tell me off, then do it, just—don’t pull me along.” He closes his mouth a little, and _he’s never been serious with anyone_ runs through Nick’s head but he doesn’t say it out loud. Not now.

“To be fair, I never said anything to you,” Nick says, but he can recognize the hurt in Harry’s eyes. “I—”

“I’m in love with you, you know,” Harry says. Calm, firm, like it’s something he means. It feels like his trump card but Nick knows him, knows he wouldn’t just say that for a reaction.

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking knock him back, though.

There’s a long moment of silence.

“Christ, Harry, you can’t just _say_ that,” Nick mutters, weak. His fingers itch with the need to touch, kiss (he remembers the last time, Harry all teeth and giggles; it shouldn’t have worked but it did, of course it did). It’s not the first time Harry’s said it – he said it that night, too, pressed it in the space between Nick’s collarbone and his neck, and Nick had to pull away after that, had to get out of the car and send Harry home alone.

Harry moves away from Nick right away, setting his shoulders forward. He stands up after a second. “Right,” he goes, and he flails a bit. “I’m just going to let myself out then.”

He’s almost to the door before Nick can talk, and he tells him to stop being such a fucking coward. _I don’t know_ , he thinks, and he – he knows that’s a lie, just as much as it was during that fucking interview, as much as it always has been every time someone asks him. “No,” he says when Harry’s at the doorframe.

Harry turns so quickly it makes Nick feel bad, almost, for taking so long to say something. “Why?”

Nick doesn’t answer; he stands up and walks to him, moving them back until Harry’s pressed against the wall. “Say it again,” he murmurs, just a bit away from Harry’s lips. This isn’t fair, it’s not fair to Harry, but he has to hear it once more before he can work up the nerve to say it back. His heart is older, has weathered too much to take this for granted.

“I love you,” Harry says, and this time his voice shakes.

Nick kisses him. He just—steps forward and holds onto Harry’s hips, tilting up and _kissing_ him, soft and careful.

Harry makes a choked sound in the back of his throat, pulling back. “You can’t fuck with me,” he whispers. “Just—don’t—”

Nick kisses him again because he can’t not, fingers wrapping around Harry’s waist and squeezing, tight. “I love you too, you idiot,” he breathes out.

He has a thousand more things to say, but Harry silences them all with another kiss, thumb pressed against Nick’s pulse point.

“Stay,” is all he manages, and he pants it out against his cheek, kissing his way down his jaw. He feels very lucky that Harry can’t grow facial hair for anything – otherwise, this would be very scratchy rather than simply smooth. “Tonight. Stay.”

Harry nods, hands slipping under Nick’s shirt. He noses at Nick’s neck and murmurs, “How long?”

“Forever,” Nick tells him.

The words hang between them for a moment, and then Harry pulls back. He frowns at Nick, looking – rather than angry, looking confused. “You don’t want me to stay forever,” he tells him.

Nick raises an eyebrow. He isn’t sure if this is Harry’s way of pushing him away, getting him to slow down, or if he really doesn’t trust Nick. “I do,” he says.

Harry lets his grip on Nick’s wrist loosen. “I tour,” he tells him, like Nick doesn’t know, like Nick hasn’t been friends with him for years, ever since Harry could hardly hide his excitement at everything. “I won’t be home all that often.”

Nick shrugs. “I work on radio,” he tells him right back, “Whenever you _are_ here I’m going to make you get up obnoxiously early.”

Harry shakes his head. “I won’t mind,” he tells him, soft, gentle.

“Come on, Haz,” Nick says, and he sounds more desperate than he’d like but less desperate than he feels. “Stay with me?”

Harry nods, slow at first and then more sure, smile slowly taking over his face. “Okay,” he says, laughing shakily.

“Okay,” Nick teases back, and his hands are gentle on Harry’s waist. “Get your things, then.”

“Tomorrow,” Harry says. “I want to stay here tonight, yeah? I can wear your things.”

Christ. Nick loves him, Nick’s always loved him. “Already making this place your own,” he says, shaking his head solemnly.

“Yeah,” Harry says around a grin, and he leans up and kisses Nick’s cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter @ haloutines if you want to talk! :)


End file.
